Ratatösk isn't playing Messenger with you mortals anymore
by MomotsukiNezumi
Summary: In a universe where Infinity Wars doesn't lead to major character death, the Avengers (and ex-Vengers) get dragged into therapy for their own good (and that of the planet), Thor eventually (re)learns to be a decent brother instead of a prat, and Loki finally learns to stop hating himself and embrace the crazy, a series of shorts offers a peek into new lives and new challenges.
1. Talking between Oceans

**A/N #1: Ok...I wrote this because Marvel's _Avengers: Infinity War (part 1)_ is coming out at the end of this month and I'm frankly terrified as to who we'll be losing character/cast-wise. I have no doubt, based on the trailers, that (among others) Vision, Tony, and likely Loki and Thor will be on the chopping block, and I want to keep my Epic Norse Bros, darn it! I want Tony to be able to have one good thing in his life that he can keep, not just have it all taken away _again._ It worries me, and given how much stress I'm under due to schoolwork and job hunting and projects, it's not going to get better. Ugh. **

**So, I wrote this, because frankly I needed some form of catharsis where I can have my favourite characters survive and even thrive a little, because Marvel clearly won't let my pathetic feelings be happy for too long (it's only been a few months since we've gotten _Thor 3: Ragnarok_ and they've already struck fear into my heart that everyone I enjoy will be horribly injured, psychologically scarred even more than usual and/or DIE). If we can't keep them alive in the MCU, you can bet your boots that the fandom community will keep them alive in stories and art!**

 **As such, this is entirely a somewhat short symbiote _AU_ piece that I'll be posting as a way to cope with all the likely character deaths and suffering, and (depending on time, mental health, and how any ideas I have), it's likely to be extended to a series of short pieces revolving around post _Thor 3: Ragnorak_ life aboard the escape ship, life on Earth/Midgard since Norway is apparently the new holy land of Asgardians(?), a few glimpses in Avengers/Ex-Vengers' life and therapy, and life in general for Thor and Loki (and the symbiote) since Thor (by MCU timelines, anyway) is supposed to be more mature and more able to be a good king (it probably helps he apparently shares the responsibilities with Loki/Valkyrie/Heimdall/etc., judging by what we see in the films), and I honestly want to see how he adjusts with no Mjolnir, no parents, no home planet, and (at least temporarily, given that MCU probably will give him some kind of replacement) an eye gone too. That's a lot for anyone to absorb, much less a guy who comes from a culture that seems almost entirely unchanged until fairly recently since everyone on Asgard seems to have millennia-long lifespans. If anyone (Thor in particular) is especially OOC, please let me know, as I'm mostly versed in writing for Loki and the symbiote at this point.**

 **A/N #2: I'm not taking specific sides on this. _Civil War_ was visually awesome but story-wise seemed too messy to me (and my love for Tony's character gives me a bias as it is), so to keep any possible flame wars to a minimum, I'm not taking an official stance on that front. As far as I can tell, it's all hands on deck to kick Thanos's creepy crayon-coloured butt back into outer space, so...no comment. Just assume that, since this is an _AU,_ everyone you like miraculously lives (even if probably not entirely unscathed), and everyone goes to therapy after _IW_ for getting actual help for their minefields of assorted issues (especially Wanda, who seriously needs to understand/acknowledge actual boundaries and differing opinions, I swear, because Vision deserves better -_-'). Ok? Ok. **

**Also, just for future reference, the symbiote has grown fond of Peter (blame the comics for making me nostalgic, and Peter's lack of animosity towards pretty much _anyone_ (even when they try to kill him, which doesn't seem good, so I'm glad he has Karen to keep an eye on him), from what I can tell, means he won't have an issue with Loki being around, which is a definite point in his favour and marks him officially as "We like this one, we won't eat this one!"), so definitely no Peter-death here :) **

**DISCLAIMER: As expected, I own nothing (save for my fanworks) of _Disney, Marvel,_ or its associated _MCU._ Please do not sue and/or flag, it accomplishes nothing except to make the muses unhappy. **

* * *

When Thor imagined getting his brother back, he'd dreamed of finding him broken, bloodied, perhaps with a stab to the side for not finding him sooner. In those dreams, those wishful thoughts, he'd wrap Loki in his cloak and help him walk home side by side, or perhaps thrown over his shoulder if he was being too stubborn about injuries in favour of shouting at him. In those dreams, he'd been able to wake up without wincing, because at least in those dreams Loki had _lived._

The brother he knew of old _(or perhaps, fooled myself that I knew, he amended ruefully)_ was sharp, but not to the point of cutting them both open on the sharpened teeth of their fractured relationship. The Loki that the Norns saw fit to give back to him was not the sweet, sassy younger sibling he fondly reminisced over, but a sharp-tongued, mad-eyed wildling whose terrifying shrieks of madness and death soon turned out to be far, far too true.

He'd never expected him to return so strange, so off-kilter, so _feral_ , all sharp angles and cutting words and smiles of flashing wolf's teeth.

He'd never imagined he'd come back at all, he admitted to himself, in the dark, cold, lonely hours of twilight in his chambers in an Asgard that no longer existed, save for a sea of memories and a wandering, orphaned, hopeful people. The Void was not a kind place, after all. There was a reason no one of their people ever had come back from such a place before.

Yet here he was _(here_ _ **they**_ _were)_ at long last, reunited and with an odd, but somehow comforting truce, though the situation still could be seen from the outside as bleak and worrisome: a handful of their remaining people, crammed onto a pleasure ship-turned-overly-stuffed-shoebox, with limited supplies and more than a few prickly relationships aboard to make thoughts and stances wary. Himself, missing now mother, father, hammer, beloved mortal, and even an eye. Loki _(Eitr, now, not quite only Loki anymore)_ standing beside him and startlingly close to heart once more, but with a brittle smirk and a wary, skittish air that spoke of old urges to run to safer pastures than the surrounding empty, dead starspace.

But they were _alive._ Against all odds and more than a few tangled threads in the Norns' weavings, Asgard still survived, her legacy preserved in a strong and hearty group of beings who refused to let their unfortunate planetary loss consume them. Thor had lost much, but he still had his people. He still had his brother. His brother, who for these past long and lonely years had seemed to be an impossibly long and frightening distance away. Few though the stars of his life may still be, they still gleamed, and all the more brightly for the darkness that surrounded them.

Thor had to remind himself of the good things. And if he didn't...

"We'll be ssure to remind you of when you're ssulking too pathetically, brother, do not worry about _that,_ " came the silken, mocking tones he knew better than his own breath. Thor turned, quiet relief welling up in his chest like blazing fire as he drank in, not for the first time, the sight of long, shadow-robed limbs, messy raven hair, and an achingly familiar lopsided little smirk. The air seemed to shiver like a heat mirage as Loki, eternally wrapped in the symbiote's hold (mimicking a cloak this time, one hand clutching the front closed as skinny ankles crossed into an "X" shape neatly over the bedcovers), reappeared seemingly into existence, a faint rustling of blankets the only other indication of arrival.

Without missing a beat, he seized his bedside decanter and threw the stopper; the soft, barely audible _thud_ left the warmth in his chest pooling outwards, spreading everywhere like spilled wine. "I do not _sulk_ , Eitr, if I do recall correctly _you_ were the one who cried over me on the battlefield mere hours ago-"

The resultant flush of embarrassment, sudden over knife-sharp cheekbones as a protest of "We did no ssuch thing, you clearly were delussional from all the pain tonics Eir has been giving you!" was worth it, even as he quickened his muscles in age-old preparation for an imagined stabbing. The glint in those strange new eyes _(not quite green, not quite rainbow-slick, but some odd fusion of the two, slowly fading as the hours pass back to the absinthe and emerald of too-short childhood)_ was oddly soft, a little somber, and he winced in lieu of an apology he wasn't quite sure, even after all of this, that he needed to make.

The slow, sharp _rat-a-tat-tat_ of sharpened clawtips clinking against metal drew his gaze to the stopper cradled in the slim, vaguely shimmering palm of his younger brother and ever-curious living second skin, rolled around and around as the thin nails skittered across the surface, rapid-fire, as if trying to find pressure points.

"So you didn't, then," he conceded, though he couldn't quite help the stretching sensation of a smile threatening to break free, and not quite failing at it.

"We _didn't_."

"Keep telling yourself that."

" _Thor."_

 _"Eitr."_

He took a moment simply to breathe in deeply, trying to take in the fact that having his brother here was indeed a good thing, and that throwing him out an airlock after just getting him home was _bad._

 _You always did tell me my temper was too quick to ignite._

They barely had the clearance from Midgard to stay in their atmosphere, after all. It wouldn't do to have to collect his sibling from another trauma-inducing fall through nothingness and space. _That_ would warrant a blade to the side.

Taking a seat next to him on the bed, Thor turned to consider them both: his haunted, vicious, half-mad baby brother who drove him to both constant affection and exasperation, and the shifting, slippery shroud of living darkness that had defended said baby brother both on and off the battlefield with a ferocity and vigour that would make any Asgardian wilt with envy. The many, many Chitauri corpses that had littered the ground in mangled shreds as It gleefully helped carve a path of obliteration across the landscape had been more than enough to attest to It's hair-trigger protective streak.

The Hulk had merely shrugged, muttering " _Puny god not so crazy anymore, has friend, no smashing today._ " and bounded off after both howling, bloodied sorcerer and symbiote in a single-bodied stampede, effortlessly hurtling Chitauri soldiers through the air to knock leviathans and ships out of the sky as if shooting clay pigeons.

He had been pleasantly surprised to find such a protection extended, even if perhaps grudgingly, to him and the remaining forces of Midgard as well (at least, it extended to the Spiderling, given that the last leviathan that tried to eat the boy had found its eyes devoured by a screaming, living abyss while Loki harpooned the flying monstrosity with a dozen magically-lengthened tendrils, each clutching a spear to impale boney flesh, and then they had descended as one upon the thing, and oh, he'd never known a leviathan could scream in such _agony_ ). Several enemies, be they Chitauri foot-soldiers, leviathan flyers, the Purple Titan's own children-soldiers, or the many others among Thanos' horrific arsenal of damnation, had met their ends not only at the ends of his brother's daggers or spellwork, but by the endless, terrifying hunger of his precious, incredibly clingy sentient armor (which Stark _still_ was a little disappointed he couldn't get agreement from to study). Asking _why_ had only led to him being tossed out of the way of an incoming flaming leviathan by thin, black-clad hands with a shout from Loki (echoed with the symbiote's rasping lisp) to "Oh, for Norns' ssake, keep _up_ , brother!", so he'd learned not to question a gift horse in the mouth and instead kept to using his newly-unlocked abilities to keep electrocuting anything that came too close to his brother or friends for comfort.

For the time being, he was content simply to be here, drinking in the comfort, bittersweet as it was, of the only family he had left.

Some time later, the other god's expression turned both vaguely annoyed and concerned, and Thor realised he'd likely been staring too long to be comfortable. He opened his mouth, not quite sure if he should tease or apologise, and then was startled back into silence as Loki _(the eyes were green now, he needed to remember the difference)_ , who seemed to be trying to find his words for the first time since they were small children, suddenly burst out with "We think we know how to fix your eyessight!"

He stared, utterly dumbstruck for a moment. Those sharp, ever-calculating eyes glinted with rainbow-slick for a moment, sharp and unearthly and _dangerous,_ and yet...was that _concern?_ "Loki, no, Eitr, no wait, _brother_ , what...how? _How?_ Eir told us that my eye is not salvageable, our sister's touch cursed the socket. Nothing will grow back. We even tried with the healing stones, and with Stark's...he called it the Bassinet, the Cot? That...device of one of his healer friends. It did not work either."

A lump unexpectedly rose in his throat, swollen and aching as if from illness, and he forced down the pang of loss before it overwhelmed him. "I do not doubt your magic, brother-"

 _I cannot doubt it, anymore. I should never have done so at all. To do so was, and still would be, quite foolish, dishonorable to you, to Mother, to all those with magic that Asgard lost._

"But your skills are in illusions and teleportation, and while I know you learned enough to keep me and our friends alive on all our adventures-" _(and the mention of it reaches in somewhere deep between his ribs and **aches** , that sense of loss from his friends' deaths, his friends who he never said goodbye to, and whose immolation in Asgard is something that still haunts him in whether it counts as a proper funeral pyre to Valhalla, he cannot bear to think their souls would go anywhere else)_

"-I don't think that even _you_ can fix this. My eye is gone, and I need to accept that as part of life now, but perhaps I can get a prosthetic-"

 _"But we can give you a new one!"_

The sudden burst of sound from his brother's lips startled them both; Thor barely resisted the urge to futilely reach for Mjolnir in instinctive defense, even as a skinny hand slapped itself over the younger god's mouth as if in shock, and the look on Loki's face was one that wavered between surprise and shaken nerves.

 _"...What?"_

Loki stared at him, looking both oddly fearful and sharply defiant at once. His hands shook, once, twice, upon where he'd curled them into fists and pushed them against his knees. The reddened visage of earlier had faded to a few splotches of pale pink, akin to water washing away blood, and the semblance of a cloak had flattened out, receding to the now-familiar catsuit.

Thor watched, still more than a little amazed, as several tendrils sprouted from around the surface of thin wrists, reaching out like some strange blackened ivy, to curl affectionately around It's host's hands in an unmistakable show of support, and slowly the shaking stopped entirely. The sable appendages stubbornly kept holding on even as movement ceased, and a thumb reached out to pet the pseudo-limbs, and he suddenly felt reminded of all the times he'd stroked Mjolnir's handle to ground himself after a particularly harrowing battle.

After a moment or two of quiet, Loki spoke again, this time with the rasping lilt that Thor now knew meant his body-sharing living garment was joining in, sharing the load in a way the older god now felt a vague stab of envy for _(I failed us both, haven't I? I'm sorry)_. "We...we know that we can't fix what happened, not fully. But we...we have been talking...and we think, perhapss, if you're amenable, we could fasshion you a new one."

A whirlwind of thoughts blew through his mind. _How is this possible? Why did you not tell me earlier? Is it dangerous? Why do you look nervous?_

Instead, he simply settled on, "Are _you_ sure you want to do this? I still have time to learn how to live without one."

The smile he got was faint, more a quirk of the lips than a proper grin, but it was still true, and that, in the end, was enough.

"What, are you afraid, perhapss? This won't be _nearly_ ass awful ass the the pain of lossing an eye." _Or at least, it shouldn't be,_ went unsaid.

"No," he replied. "I'm not."

A thin eyebrow was raised, eyes flashing with a glint of oil-slick that flickered briefly to cover the whole iris like ink spilling across water. "And why, pray tell, iss _that,_ brother?"

"Because I trust you."

For a brief, glorious, heartbreaking moment, Thor watched his verbally unflappable sibling stare at him, mouth agape in surprise as two sets of voices overlapped to start sputtering instinctive protests as to why _that_ was a _bad_ idea and _why,_ for Allmother's sake, did he want to bring that up _now_ , only to fall silent entirely, eyes almost comically wide as Thor reached out and wrapped his arms around Loki in a hug.

"I told you," he said quietly, one hand reaching out to cradle the back of a lean, pale neck _(startling inwardly at the touch of unarmed skin, the symbiote's sudden shift in presence to expose a collar-shielded nape in a gesture he was suddenly irrationally terrified of disregarding, discarding as he'd done so often in years past),_ "and I shall continue to tell you as many times as you need, as many as _both_ of you need. I know I don't have the same way with words that you do, but I should still say it, yes? I know we've had some rough years," he held them both closer, "that our difficulties aren't easily solved, that I may not always be the most attentive, but I _do_ mean it when I trust you. You're still my brother, you'll _always_ be my brother, and I love you. Never doubt that, understand?"

The soft, choked noise, a noise that sounded oddly like _yes_ , that issued from where a dark head had buried itself into his shoulder was affirmation enough, as were the hands that slowly reached out to grip the back of his clothing and clutch tight enough to rend the fabric asunder beneath thin fingers. A slow, fragile shudder passed through them both as Thor relaxed into the sensation of sharp clawtips digging into his shirt, tilting himself slightly to rest his chin atop a crown of messy raven's wing hair.

Slowly, perhaps a moment or even a lifetime away, Thor grew aware that the feeling of cutting nails at his back had shifted, a single hand having moved to reach up, hovering a few inches from his eye in silent askance to continue. Blinking, he looked at the uncharacteristically soft expression in his sibling's gaze as Loki tilted his head sideways, eyes flickering to the offered hand for a split second in reminder.

Taking a deep breath, Thor nodded and opened both eyes. The sudden rush of cool recirculated air into the empty eye socket made him flinch, but he refused to back down and stop looking.

Loki placed his palm against the open, empty hollow, there was a brief moment of familiar tingling as magic numbed the surrounding tissue, and then suddenly _pressure_ and _cold_ and _sparking_ slithered into the space, pouring in deeper, deeper, _deeper_ and Thor suddenly wasn't sure this was a good idea anymore-

* * *

The world went suddenly, mercifully _dark._

* * *

When he opened his eyes, he was suddenly hit by the blinding, shocking understanding that he could _see._

For the first time since their wayward sister had taken his eye, he could see from both sides again. It was more than he'd ever expected to get, and the suddenness of it made him giddy, drunk with elation.

"Awake, are we?"

Thor swung his head around, but it was not hearing that guided him; he just _knew._

"What...what do you...what did _both_ of you do?" His voice felt scratched, raw, suddenly too big for his body to produce. His head swam with incoming information: the brightness of the ship ceiling lights, the scratchiness of the overly-starched bedding, the tang of ridiculously-expensive alcohol left open without the decanter stopper to close it, the _spark-pop-crack_ of lightning under his skin itching to be freed, Loki...

No, _Eitr,_ who sat cross-legged a foot away from him on the bed, concern in their kaleidoscopic gaze and a healing spell glimmering with forest-green and palace-gold runes in one hand. Thor blinked, taking in the familiar sight of his lanky, sharp-angled brother, but he felt _more_ now: he could sense the secondary presence cradled deep in lean flesh, a living, sapient shroud of famine that curled contentedly around the golden core of Loki's magic like a dragon guarding its hoard.

 _We fixed you. You sshould thank uss, it'ss only polite._

"Loki, _please_ tell me you can hear that."

A low, curling smile edged at the other god's mouth as realisation dawned. "Oh. _Oh._ Well, _that'ss_ an interessting sside-effect. Not sso mad now, are we?"

"Oh, you're plenty mad," and here he felt for a moment like laughing, "but perhaps now I am too, if only a little. So...that is your...other half, you told me?"

At the ensuing nod, Thor sighed and, in a fit of exasperated acceptance, let himself drop back against the bedcovers, a low groan rising from his throat. "Oh, _joy._ Now we need to explain to Heimdall why I have part of _your_ other half _in my skull_ and that I can see again, and apparently hear It as well. I'll be mad king Thor before the day is out, mark my words."

A laugh, not quite gurgling hysterics but not quite the same as years ago, echoed through the room as Eitr collapsed into a neat pile of limbs next to him, a hint of old, well-loved mischief in the god's pale visage and gleaming, multicoloured gaze as a click of the fingers conjured a small hand-held mirror. "Well, look at it thiss way, Thor. You won't have to look like you're imitating the Allfather'ss fasshion ssensse."

Staring into the shining glass surface, Thor could only agree, though the stubborn sense of contentment refused to leave.

Two eyes, hale and whole, gazed back out at him, one a long-familiar blue, and its new partner, an equally-familiar green, ringed with a wire-thin but unmistakable sliver of rainbow-slick.


	2. Dementors need Food, too

**A/N: I wrote this today for several reasons (primarily to derail canon in the name of protecting all the characters I've gotten attached to). The other reasons are detailed below:**

 **1) If you've read ANY of my MCU-related works, you know my stance on Odin is that he's a completely useless excuse for a parent, and is also a racist, increasingly senile piece of garbage in general. So, getting rid of him? I've wanted to do that since the** **first ****_Thor_** **film. I'm celebrating this with tea and mug cake, people! May Frigga berate him for all eternity in the afterlife.**

 **I also find it ironic that, even though he was still upset at him for all the crappy parenting and lies, Loki still somehow managed to leave Odin stranded with more resources than Odin stranded Thor with. It's BIZARRE. "Yes, my evil plan of becoming king involves sending my senile, racist adoptive dad to a retirement home among the people he deliberately deemed less than animals, while my adoptive brother gets released from his princely duties and can hang out on Earth and go to find magic rocks! I'm going to sit back, get totally sauced, and fund the Arts like some sassy alien version of Dionysus!" Yeah...Loki's reign was...weird to me. Really, really, really weird, and rather self-indulgent and boozy, judging by the wine and statue (and the stupid play that I refuse to think of as anything other than a deliberate trolling parody to see whether Asgard can tell that "Odin" has cracked and become 100% crazy instead of 95% crazy like before, because otherwise that play was frankly totally out of left field and useless), but it wasn't like Asgard burnt to the ground while Thor was away (SPOILER: That only happens when Thor gave him the green-light for that, and frankly it was pleasing AND irritating to see mythology get flung out the window to stop a bad guy). For a reign that lasted less than half a decade, it's honestly pretty boring, but not terrible.**

 **2) The fact that (SPOILER UP AHEAD) the Odinforce (that he's admitted is tied to his life-force) is all that's keeping Hela locked away (again, BAD parenting, Odin! You MADE this a problem!) is frankly terrifying, since he never bothered to explain this crap and instead swept it under the rug and played a millenia-long game of "stick your fingers in your ears and pretend nothing bad ever came from your bad choices while benefiting from all the riches you got from said crappy choices", and LOOK WHAT IT CAUSED. The minute he croaked in** ** _Thor 3_** **he painted a target on his entire precious Asgard (AND his own remaining family), and he STILL gets to go doddering off into the sunset scott-free, even after looking** ** _only_** **at Thor when saying he loved both his sons (yeah, not buying that even with Monopoly money, Not-father. You suck worse than a black hole). Thanks for somehow causing MORE problems because you couldn't be bothered to actually be a decent person. HOW DID ANY OF YOUR CHILDREN EVEN MAKE IT TO ANYTHING CLOSE TO ADULTHOOD? YOU CAN'T BE A DECENT LOVING PARENT FOR MORE THAN 5 MINUTES, YOU LIE EVEN MORE THAN LOKI DOES, YOU HAVE PLANET-SIZED HYPOCRISY AND FAVOURITISM ISSUES, AND YOU DON'T EXPLAIN ANYTHING IMPORTANT UNTIL THE LAST POSSIBLE FREAKING SECOND, AND THAT'S ONLY IF YOU'RE FORCED TO.**

 **I don't care that he showed a little remorse for all his crappy actions, I don't care that he told both his sons (despite it being worthless) that he loved them, he DIRECTLY caused the chain of events that led to all this crap. YOU ARE A TERRIBLE PARENT, AND A TERRIBLE KING. It was like _Marvel_ had given me the visual acting out of Steve's stupid "apology" letter to Tony at the end of _Civil_ War, just somehow even _less_ useful or sincere. Ugh. **

**3) SPOILER ALERT GALORE HERE: Guess what? We wouldn't even have had the stupid Tesseract stored in the weapons vault if it wasn't for Odin (who ordered it brought back to Asgard by Thor in the first** ** _Avengers_** **film). The Aether was at least sent to the Collector, but the Tesseract? Sure, let's keep an all-powerful cosmic cube and use it to randomly beam down on other planets to attack marauders (I can admit I'm glad they fought to defend the local inhabitants, but said locals wouldn't even NEED that protection if Asgard hadn't conquered them and stripped them of their militia in the first place!). And honestly, I have to say Loki taking the stupid cube with him when Asgard blew up was really freaking stupid (since if Surtur can obliterate an entire realm, I'm relatively sure he can at least damage the Tesseract, even destroy it, and frankly having it destroyed would have been better (in my opinion) than having it survive so Thanos can find it, since apparently even hiding the stupid cube in a magic pocket dimension doesn't cloak it entirely). If Surtur can obliterate an entire realm like a bunch of gilded kindling, I'm pretty sure he can at least crack an Infinity Stone. I'm blaming that on the writing, though, we can't have people always make smart decisions since it'll take away from explosions/epic fighting/death-when-convenient, right? We need to kill off a beloved character AND kick Thor when he's down by stripping him of the last family member he's got left FOR FILM PROFITS HAHAHA.**

 **...No, I'm not over it. I never will be, I think. So this is how I cope with it. CANON AND MARVEL CAN FIGHT ME, I'M NOT MOVING FROM MY HAPPY ENDING.**

 **DISCLAIMER: As always, I don't own anything even remotely useful/profitable/fun belonging to _Marvel, Disney_ , or (in this case) Rowling's lovely _Harry Potter_ series. Suing/flagging/flaming does utterly nothing useful for anyone here, so please just be civil and go forth to greener pastures if you don't like what I'm writing. **

* * *

The weather in Norway could be counted on year-round to be refreshing and mild, despite its location on Earth implying a much colder yearly climate.

Recently, though...

The weather had turned... _strange._ The air had become colder, bringing frigid temperatures and layering a delicate layer of frost over everything. The cold reached down into his bones, sapping all energy and leaving him lethargic, clammy, and mind awash with fog and old regrets.

Waking up was harder these days. Long gone were the days of fine silk sheets and the comfort of his wife to wake him from any disturbed sleep. The simple cotton and down covers served well enough, but there was no gentle wife's touch to wipe away the night terrors, the musing of alternatives, the icy stab of loss that choked him even without hands to do so.

People were leaving, slowly but surely. The caretakers of the retirement home still did their work diligently, but they were becoming more nervous, the only happiness to be found in leaving early, when the sun still managed to weakly shine through the increasingly darker clouds. Today's afternoon shift had left, with the new workers giving in to his wishes to watch the sunset alone, though they'd promised to be in the building and would be coming to bring him back inside when the sun sank down below the horizon.

Even the animals had fled. Squirrels and chipmunks had vanished into the trees, birds had taken to the skies and flocked so far away they were no longer visible, and livestock had become skittish, unhappy, and more and more unsettled as the days grew shorter, the nights longer, and the cold crept up further to engulf the country in its icy maw. The wilder creatures had hidden away in caves and burrows, or deep in the abyss of cold in the ocean, to the point where the fishermen had begun searching elsewhere for their daily catches.

Nightmares had become more frequent, despite his best attempts not to think of them.

Asgard, burning, breaking apart, rent to ash, flooded with the blood of its people. The methods changed, but the results were always decidedly the same.

Frigga, lifeless and bloodied on the floor, sword abandoned beside her as Thor screamed in grief strong enough to rattle the skies. Frigga, his queen, his reason, his conscience, his war-gotten love _(stolen, too, no wonder Loki accused him of thievery when he'd been doing so for his entire life)._

Thor, who had he'd coddled, perhaps too much _(was it to soothe his guilt for what happened to his eldest, or was it to make himself better than the monster he'd been, the monster his children kept trying to emulate, to make proud?),_ even when he'd banished him. Thor _(the only bit of gold in Asgard not begotten from bloodlust and conquest, perhaps that was why he'd held such pride in him?)_ and the hammer he'd been gifted as a training tool, meant to help but instead rendered a tangible crutch to his powers.

Loki, who had looked so much like his eldest he'd taken to looking to Thor instead, simply to keep from letting himself remember the loss of their sister, his failure to keep her as she should have been _(it was easier to look at the light, rather than the dark shadow rent so close in looks to the void he'd made in foolish pride)_. Loki, whom nightmares kept falling endlessly even as the dreams were kind _(or perhaps just more cruel)_ enough to allow Thor or himself to reach out, try to grab him from the maw of death even as a pale hand slipped from the handle of Gungnir, too weakened by the shellshocks of a lifetime of secondary treatment and a lie too cruel not to burn upon its release _(he never dreamt of the Loki who had come back, the one with the wild eyes and mocking smile, knives ready to rend flesh to pieces and a hunger that echoed so strongly of Hela that he'd locked him in the dungeons for fear of history repeating itself)-_

Hela, perhaps his oldest of living regrets. Imprisoned, and for what? He had _made_ her so, hadn't he? He'd given her Fenris, taught her battle alongside Frigga, appointed her as his Executioner, and gave her all the trappings and teachings expected of a firstborn of the royal family of Odin's line.

And when she'd grown too old, too strong in her thoughts and desires, he'd banished her, bound her far away, and pretended she had never existed at all, even with the corpses of her militia and her faithful hound _(she had loved the damn thing, and that love was repaid in kind when it snarled like damnation itself and tried to tear Odin's throat out and devour him for separating them, he shouldn't have let it watch when she was locked up and cried for it to help her, save her)_ hidden away, deep under the earth with the rest of Odin's lies, regrets, and fears. Her blades, her armor, her laughter, all so ghostly, haunting the very air of Asgard so much that Loki's emulation _(unknown, unnoticed by younger generations, but he knew better than to think it mere coincidence)_ seemed almost grotesque at times to witness.

Overhead, the air had grown so cold his breath seemed to turn to clouds upon release, wafting out into the air in thick plumes as if from an awakening volcano. Frost crept across the grassy field, the once-green blades crunching like broken glass beneath his feet as he stepped out to survey the landscape, a thick woolen blanket wrapped about him from neck to foot like a cape from a particularly insistent employee who refused to accept Odin's single-eye glare as a dismissal. In the end, he'd only worn the damn thing once she'd retreated back into the house, refusing to admit that the cold stinging him wasn't only from the unnerving weather.

Before him, the cliffside eroded into a pale, marble-like ruin, the sea below a churning scope of steely water. Bone-white froth gnawed at the bottom of the cliff, crashing against the surface as an endless battering ram. No birdsong rent the air. The tang of salt, harsh and strong, invaded his nostrils as he breathed.

In the sky, a dark pinprick could be seen, just barely, flitting closer with each passing breath. Then another, and then another, and then, he realised with a dull, slowly-waking unease, there were _more_ , appearing seemingly out of nowhere as the clouds slowly shifted out of the way. The building behind him seemed muted, the faint chattering of the humans within as they spoke of their sad, ancient charge growing vague and out-of-tune as if from far away. Lights flickered, as if a switch had been toggled by unseen hands.

His brow furrowed, eyes narrowing as he stared in a growing horror at the sight of hundreds of black, ragged-looking, cloaked figures soaring closer, and dimly, even as his heart began to pound as it hadn't since the battles of his youth, he understood, with a sickening feeling, that somehow, impossibly, they were here for _him._

The frost kicked up in ferocity, freezing over the water, creeping up the cliff like some hideous parody of ivy, and he felt true fear for the first time in years as it came _closer_ , spreading past the edge of the cliff and advancing towards him. The air was agony to breathe now, like someone had stabbed him through the lungs and left the blade there, and as he coughed and tried to inhale properly, the unnatural frost finally managed to crust over the blanket he'd been swaddled in. Horrified, he struggled to get the constricting cloth off even as he stepped back, trying to move back to the house. His foot caught on the hem and he stumbled, falling onto his back.

With a choked cry, he fell backwards, slamming bodily onto half-frozen dirt with a wheeze of shock. Dimly, through the agony flooding his system and the darkness eating at his vision, he heard screaming, crying, _pain_ as he had tried so hard to forget in these past months of captivity.

 _"...T-That I am the monsters parents tell their children about at night?"_

 _"You are an old man and a fool!"_

 _"And how are we to live with ourselves after this? You expect me to forget her?"_

 _"Father, please, I can do better, I promise, don't lock me away, DON'T LOCK ME AWAY-"_

The scent of salt would be welcome now. Rot now permeated the air, choking his senses with flashbacks of battlefields littered with the long-dead, and from what little he could see as he strained to turn his head, the lights in the building had snuffed out; no voices could be heard inside.

They had landed now, a long, unsettling procession of tall figures swathed in fabric so worn and dark it seemed hewn from night itself. One by one, they approached him, silent but for a strange, bone-chilling rattle that left shudders running down his spine. He tried to move, to get away, get _away_ as his mind screamed so fervently at him, but he seemed rooted to the spot, bound by some unseen abomination of magic that left all strength lost.

They surrounded him, and the one right in front of him leaned forward. His heart was thundering in his chest now, panic sounding like a thousand alarms, a cold sweat drenching his skin as he looked into that filthy black hood and saw a monster unlike anything he'd known before.

Two thin, decaying limbs reached out from behind overly-long sleeves, the ends trailing against frosted grass in a perverse _shshshshhhhhh_ as a skinny, green-grey hand seized both his arms and held them in a sickening grip, colder even than a jötunn's touch, and then the other hand pulled down the robe and Odin blanched in horror at the sight.

He barely had even the chance to scream, to wail in disgust and fear at the mottled, dead-looking skin, the gaping void of a hungry mouth, before it sealed its lips over his mouth for a brief moment, then stepped back, hauling a faint wisp of silver with it to be sucked in.

Dizzy, terrified, mind caterwauling an endless loop of horror, he barely had time to recover before the next one flitted forward to take the abandoned spot.

* * *

When the caretakers finally went out to check, they were horrified to find the elderly man on the ground, blanket wrapped loosely around him and soaked with melted frost. His eyes were glassy, though he still breathed. Hurrying to carry him inside, the nearest emergency medical service was called.

Questioning only led to more confusion than answers. The employees could recall no new visitors, much less a break-in, so the only answer to the resident's state was assumed to be a stroke. For now, he was being given long-term hospice care, but waking from his new coma seemed unlikely.

In the distance, a raven cawed.


	3. We're Not Burned Yet, Save your Pyres

**Or, alternatively, Asgardian Rhapsody: So Long, and thanks for all the Shwarma**

 **A/N #1: So...I wrote this as part of a bigger thing, but felt like it could go here too. The first film (sweet gods, we'll be getting another one, be still my beating heart) of Infinity Wars has...razed me, for lack of a better word. At the time of writing this, I'm pretty much scorched earth beneath the purging fire of Phase 4's film decisions, and can barely muster the urge not to bawl my eyes out or just scream obscenities in every language I know. Rage is easier, more palatable, since I can at least sharpen that into a point to write with. Sadness is still lurking around too, but that just drains me and makes me not want to watch _anything_ that's _Marvel_ -related for at least a decade (and that would be pointless _and_ stupid of me to do, so let's not do that), so I'm pushing past that and drowning my sorrows with tea, and taking to my keyboard to hammer out more fanfic as the only coping method that hasn't totally abandoned me in the wake of watching every single character I've gotten emotionally invested in for over a decade suffer horribly onscreen. Angrily hitting things and screaming epithets when no one else is home, I've found, also does help a little bit (thank goodness for punching bags).**

 **A/N #2: WARNING AHEAD: For Norns' sake, please take into account that there are SPOILERS in this! Not tons and tons (because while I could give a flying fig about Thanos demanding silence when I really want to do is pound his stupid head into obliteration with the stupid Infinity Gauntlet right now, soak him in oil, then salt and burn him into nonexistence with his precious Infinity Stones for good measure, the stupid neckbeard purple raisin tosser deserves it, I acknowledge that I need to at least warn people as a common courtesy), but they will be there. Some of the film dialogue will be utilised as well, because there will be times when it will be needed to establish situational context. **

**Given that you understand that this is part of my Symbiote _AU,_ though, please take into consideration that, while I recognise canon's complete nuking of everyone's feelings as a powerful, emotionally-changing idea just furthers how strongly Marvel has touched our hearts over the years, my salty, salty feelings have decided it's a stupid-ass decision to keep in line with and I've elected to ignore it. It's a great film, and definitely one to watch at least once...but I'm standing my ground, planting my feet in imitation of Ents (they're even harder to move than Steve when they want to be!), and saying it's canon horrors can get thrown the **** over off the nearest cliff. THERE WILL BE NO CHALLENGE TODAY!**

 **In other words: YOU MOVE, CANON. THE FANDOM YOU LEFT US SHATTERED OVER? IT. IS. DEFENDED. I DO WHAT I WANT. *opens hands and mimics Peter Quill's flip-off machine motion because as ridiculous as it might be, I want these characters to LIVE, dammit***

 **A/N #3: Just remember what I said in a previous chapter about everyone living? REMEMBER THAT, PLEASE. It's taking everything I have not to throw my computer out the window as I write this, since I'm still trying to get over the shock of all the death and general dark stuff we got, and it's very hard when I've been digging myself out a bad place mentally in recent weeks (which is partly why I'm writing so much fanfiction, it's always comforting). I have a skeleton outline for this written already, but it's literally taking one look at canon and going "NOPE. DOING SOMETHING ELSE NOW. DIDN'T ASK, DON'T NEED IT, GO **** YOURSELF." so please don't expect frequent updates, or for full film accuracy (this is, after all, me writing a potential dumpster fire of ideas as a fix-it to soothe the part of me that demands my happy ending from _Disney_ ). I'm planning about 9 chapters for this in total, but I don't know if that will change in the future.**

 **DISCLAIMER: I know everyone knows this by now, but still, just to be safe...I own nothing of _Marvel, Disney,_ or anything even remotely required of it's associated products/films (including characters/film or comic dialogue quotes or abilities/locations, etc.), and just because I've been on a bit of a kick for it recently (blame enjoying the show despite any and all plotholes and destruction of feelings), _Supernatural_. This work is my own, but it's a fanwork only (so no suing, please). **

* * *

Years later, as they looked out side by side over the cool, breezy cliffsides of Norway, their people prosperous and finally settling into the idea of being _safe_ for the first time in forever, Loki, with his symbiote curled around him and miming in amused agreement, will tell anyone who will listen that it was _Thor's_ terrible idea.

* * *

 _I shouldn't have said anything. Damn my sentiments._

The hand closed around their windpipe felt like damnation itself, a claustrophobic, agonising vice around symbiote-enhanced muscle and bone that ached with a cold and terrifying strength. Thor was screaming something in the background, something futile, perhaps, something that sounded like raw, ugly, throat-shredding grief and a rage that burned more fiercely than the sun itself and it sounded like _NO_ and _Brother_ and _Don't you dare-!_ but they could barely hear it, given that most attention was diverted to _not_ choking to death beneath the Mad Titan's delighted grip.

 _At least Thor isn't dead yet, Thanos didn't split his skull._ He knew he wouldn't be so fortunate, _they_ knew they wouldn't be able to escape death's grip again.

Eitr is trapped here, they know it all too well what it's like to dangle, helpless and raging, in the grip of a force far more cruel and powerful than they were, and so while Loki bites back the urge to gasp for air through a bruised, cracked throat and the symbiote screams an internal litany of rage and anguish, Thanos is free to smile at the sight of the terrified, defiant ragtags left before him: Thor, chained to the ground and mouth bound shut with a cursed metal gag in a sickening show of submission, single eye wide with horror as Eitr sputtered and shook, body convulsing in the bone-crushing grip of the Infinity Gauntlet, and the Black Order _(his soldiers, his children, his playthings, his tools and his subjects)_ standing by, grim-eyed and fingering their weaponry in readiness to cull the area of those who would dare show their master disrespect.

Asgard's pathetic remnant populace had been rendered ashes mere moments before, despite the valiant attempts of Thor's band of misfit warriors to defend their numbers from the cold and merciless grip of the Titan's advancement. The defense had ensured their ashes, save for that of the strange green man, joined their fellows, coating the ground with a sickening corpse-dust that choked the lungs and left an ill-gotten stillness in the air. He lay nearby, chained down even more than Thor was, with weapons aimed in case of any stray movement; the action seemed futile, given his glassy-eyed expression, gaze red-rimmed from silent tears at the destruction of his new friends.

Even with the golden Realm rendered close to extinction, it wouldn't do to lower their guard. They still had prey here to deal with, after all.

The choked whimper that makes its way free of a shared throat is utterly mortifying, as are the slow-drying tears threatening to encroach on their vision, but Eitr is more concerned with the fact that Thor, struggling mightily to escape his bonds, is _glowing._ Ozone unfurls through the air, sharp and tangy, as white-hot light shone from the god of thunder's remaining blue eye. Sparks dance at the edges of his hands, brighter and brighter, and the Thanos' children-soldiers are moving closer, looking angered and wary, and the glow is getting _brighter_ -

 _That-That looks like-_

They barely have a second to remember Thor's emergency plan before the world around them all but _explodes_ as heat, scorching and feral and _terrifying_ , slams through the air in a massive thunderclap of energy. Almost reflexively, the hand around their throat _squeezes_ , and something in the muscle and bone spasms and gives way. Loki screams, voice cracking into oblivion around ruined vocal cords, and the symbiote _(screaming with him It **always** hurts as he does)_ abruptly engulfs him, head to toe down to the very last hair and clawtip, hauling Itself around him in a full-body shield even as the suit's surface thrashed and quaked, needles erupting into existence as pain blossomed through every shared cell like some hideous flower. His magic joins in, bursting out of his body in a storm of shimmering gold and slamming into the nearest body like so much shrapnel. The crushing, deathly pressure around his throat suddenly ceases, and he barely has time to appreciate being dropped from the Titan's grasp as they fall, dropping in a broken, messy heap on the ruined floor. Dazed, mind awash with shock, they lay in a heap like an abandoned doll, watching the huge purple body convulse in surprise and pain as the Black Order shrieks and moans, smoking, charred, burnt and scrambling to recollect themselves.

Shakily, they try to move, get up, do something, _anything_ , because they can't just lie there and be _useless_ when Thor is still chained up and they're still surrounded by enemies. Pain lances through their neck, the feeling sudden and with such ugly frankness they nearly black out, and horror and dark resignation floods shared veins as Loki realises Thanos had broken it just badly enough to render movement nearly impossible, paralysis just a mere fraction of an inch away even as he grits his teeth and forces his limbs to move and the symbiote frantically works to repair the damage before they are rendered the last of Asgard's people-

But everything suddenly pales in significance as the Infinity Gauntlet begins to shake, vibrating wildly as the streams of Thor's lightning arc around it like some bizarre form of neon lighting, a familiar golden glow hitched around the blue-white energy and the Stones vibrating with increasing vigour as the power that impacted their container sank in and was absorbed. Thanos was staring at the Infinity Gauntlet with the strangest expression Loki had ever known, even when first "visiting" the Void: suspicion, and fear.

The Infinity Stones gleam and glow, they shimmer and pulse, but never in his life had Loki known them to _sing._ The haunting, insidious crooning of the Mind Gem had been somewhat of an enigma to him, he did not consider it singing so much as _whispering_ the terrible, beautiful, disturbingly enticing lilt of It's promises when he'd been forced to stay near it, the haunting murmurs enough to set his teeth on edge and leave him uneasy, skittish, with the urge to stab and bolt at the slightest of provocations. Even now, the symbiote snarls at the noise, but their shields are in tatters and he doesn't think he can rebuild them when they're about to be extinguished.

He felt the air hum with energy, the symbiote's wary mental hissing bleeding out as rust-red shards of hostility and peppery bursts of dark orange confusion, and for a brief, terrifying moment, everyone on the scene was united in collective terror and curiosity as the Infinity Gauntlet lit up, trembling like a leaf on the wind, and then the singing picks up and crescendos to a pitch-less, unheard shriek as reality crumpled in itself like a piece of crushed paper, warping apart, and everything _cracks-_

* * *

A jötunn-born mage, a symbiote, and a thunder god fall through space, through time, through infinity itself, as the freed Stones _whirr_ and glitter like captured starlight, burning supernova-hot and blinding like the sun's bounty, whistling like an out-of-tune harmonica and as the bands of travel stretch tauter, pulling tighter and tighter and _tighter_ until something in the universe finally surrenders to the pressure and _SNAPS-_

* * *

Loki seizes his brother closer, fingers digging in enough that he feels blood oozing up, but even with both hands smarting and blistered from the touch of the Tesseract he refuses to let go now, if he lets go he knows that Thor will be gone forever and he can't, he _won't_ have that-

 _Please, please, for Norn's sake, dammit, PLEASE-_

The symbiote, ever-listening, ever-faithful, heeds his call, slinging out thick tendrils of liquid night and grabbing on like a lamprey, and together they grab onto arms and legs, wrapping snakelike around their prize even as he seizes Thor by the neck, hauling him close and shoving his head beneath his chin in an instinctive gesture to shield him from the eye-melting light show _(even now, years and fights and screams and far too many stabbings to count, he still remembers protecting this dear, foolish oaf and centuries of muscle memory don't just evaporate out of existence even after a few years of trying)._ Green eyes flicker with a rainbow mirage as he shuts them against the kaleidoscope of colours surrounding them. Thor, still shivering, skin crackling with thunderbolts racing across in arcs and bursts like miniature comet trails, finally responds, forcibly clutching himself closer, tucking his head into the hollow of Loki's throat and squeezing his sides with hands that shake like an drunkard bereft of liquor, and the Lichtenburg figures that formed on skin contact felt sensitive, scraped raw, but he refuses to move away and the symbiote doesn't begin healing them yet because as long as the lightning reaches out and Thor still huffs a breath against his neck then Asgard has not yet burnt out of existence, that _home_ wasn't entirely gone-

He'd never thought he'd miss the dizzying, nauseating sensation of BiFrost travel, but this was definitely the worse way to traverse time and space.

* * *

When they land, the impact shakes the ground with enough force to cause a small earthquake. A crater forms, huge and cracked and blasting dust so high into the air it could be mistaken at first glance for an erupting volcano.

Lying in the wreckage, curled around each other like a pair of cats, two figures stirred, coughing out dust-tinged blood and blinking against the harsh light of the sun's rays.

Pinned beneath his sibling's deceptively smaller bulk, the older of them spits out a mouthful of reddened dirt and sputters out, "Loki? Or is it Eitr right now? Are you alright? _Say something, dammit!_ " He seizes them by the shoulders, clutching like a drowning man even as his voice shudders in an all-too-valid panic. The single blue eye roved over the skinny god's battered frame, desperation evident in the fingers that dug into suit-covered skin as if trying to find a pulse with every last finger-pad. The catsuit was shredded, leaving slivers of the body underneath peeking out in haphazard patterns, his exposed throat heavily bruised from the backlash from the Infinity Gauntlet. What skin he could see was littered with Lichtenberg figures, dark against the paper-fragile surface.

"We're here, Thor," and wasn't that just _funny_ in the end? The end of everything they'd known, the imminent destruction of all that mattered, and yet it was here, in Norns only knew where, that his voice could be loud instead of quiet when he spoke assurances. He blamed the near destruction of his neck and its vocal cords for the fact that his voice was shaky, raspy, the words soft in a way that only sickness and the vulnerable points of youth had ever held.

The catsuit slid up and away from black-clad hands, revealing thin, pale fingers as Loki reached out, grabbing the back of Thor's neck and dragging him close. "We're here, and we're not going anywhere. Now shut up, just _shut up-_ " His voice cracked, the symbiote too exhausted to help fuel his words further, and the resulting silence was deafening.

Thor fell silent, reaching out to wrap both arms around his sibling's bony frame and cling as tightly as possible. Nosing under Loki's chin with a grunt, he tucked his face into the hollow of pale throat before him and exhaled, feeling something in his chest loosen at the reassuring _thud_ of a pulse against his skin. Loki slings himself over his brother's larger body, locking up arms and legs around scarred, tanned muscle as he shudders, trying desperately to unwind enough to remember that they'd survived, that it was _alright_ to be a little clingy, to have this. He linked his hands together, petting the catsuit's surface almost on autopilot as his mind poured out a feedback loop of _alive_ and _safe_ and _thank the Norns you're both still here_.

Fixing the universe could wait. For now...just for a little while, they could take a breath. They could take a little bit of comfort, bittersweet as it was, that they had lived even amidst the loss of all else they'd hoped to keep. And when they finally detangled themselves, when they got up and began trying to figure out where _(or even when)_ they were, then they could begin to move forward.

Thor exhaled, and tried to look on the bright side. He was alive, and was Eitr. They could fix this. They _would_ fix this.

 _Because that's what heroes do._


End file.
